Perspective Beyond Money.

Team

Our senior professionals are the custodians of our firm’s core values: integrity, determination and character. Each has their own hand-on industry knowledge and hard-won transactional experience over many deals and many years. Since 1995, The Courtney Group has earned a reputation for raising capital, completing transactions, and adding value to companies.

Tom Courtney

President / Managing Director

Tom Courtney, President and Managing Director, is an experienced private equity investor and investment banker. Mr. Courtney has advised on more than 200 transactions involving financings, acquisitions and divestitures since 1986. Since founding The Courtney Group, Incorporated in 1995, he has advised on more than 60 investment banking transactions, and has completed 18 private equity investments as principal since 1999. Investment banking, including advising on private placements of securities and mergers & acquisitions, is handled through The Courtney Group, LLC, a registered broker-dealer, member FINRA and SIPC.

Mr. Courtney has deep experience finding and evaluating investment opportunities, negotiating transactions, arranging financings with relationships that are both extensive and deep. He regularly helps recruit top managers and board members so these organizations can excel. Mr. Courtney has started, bought and sold, and financed more than 20 companies.

Prior to establishing The Courtney Group, Mr. Courtney worked at Morgan Stanley & Co., Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc., James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated, and Peers & Co. Mr. Courtney received an undergraduate degree in Economics from Princeton University and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has served on many boards of directors including currently: Bastech, Santier, and the All-American Boys Chorus. He is married with four children. His passions include triathlon, tennis, tango, food, wine and travel.

Areas of Interest:

Consumer

Chemicals

Health Care

Technology

Manufacturing

Kevin Fechtmeyer

Senior Advisor

Kevin Fechtmeyer, Senior Advisor, has over 25 years of experience in private equity and investment banking. He has worked with over 50 emerging growth companies as advisor, director and investor, completing over $4 billion in transactions involving Private Equity, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.

Mr. Fechtmeyer is Managing Partner of Cave Creek Capital Management, based in Phoenix, Arizona which makes private equity investments in growth companies. Mr. Fechtmeyer has a long history with The Courtney Group, making a number of private equity investments with the firm. Mr. Fechtmeyer became a Senior Advisor to The Courtney Group, LLC in 2011. Mr. Fechtmeyer specializes in complex M&A and financing transactions. He assists companies in strategic analysis, raising capital and providing advice on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures.

Previously he worked in investment banking in New York at The Shattan Group, Prudential Securities, Kidder Peabody, and Merrill Lynch. He started his career at Touche Ross as an auditor and is a Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Fechtmeyer received a BS in Accounting and Entrepreneurship from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Paul Pickard

Senior Advisor

Paul Pickard has extensive operating background as the CEO or top business leader at several different companies and large divisions of Fortune 500 companies. Before Stewart Capital, Mr. Pickard previously ran American Identity, the largest apparel manufacturing for promotional products distribution company. He also led National Pen, a world-wide direct marketer and pen manufacturer, through a demanding three-year repositioning initiative. Before joining National Pen, Paul established and built a $250 million manufactured housing business in the western United States through seven acquisitions and 14 greenfield start-ups. Paul’s earlier career was with the Taco Bell Division of PepsiCo, where he was responsible for the Los Angeles market, an information technology department, and a key marketing department. He introduced many new products into the Taco Bell system, including the Quesadilla, and achieved dramatic cost savings leveraging information technology, and contributed leading-edge ideas to the marketing program.

Paul began his post-MBA career as a management consultant with McKinsey & Co. Prior to attending business school, he worked for Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard in engineering, sales, and strategy development roles. Paul holds an M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance and Marketing and a B.S. in Engineering with a major in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, earning both degrees at Duke University.

Ed McKenna, PhD.

Managing Director

Ed McKenna, PhD., Managing Director, has over 20 years of experience in starting companies, creating and leading strategic plans, making acquisitions, and advising senior management teams. At The Courtney Group, Dr. McKenna works with healthcare and technology businesses.

Dr. McKenna is also Advising President and COO of JRG Ventures, a retained firm with expertise in corporate development, product growth strategy, licensing and partnering within the life sciences, health technology, and novel disruptive technologies. JRG’s clients are global and range from start-up ventures to multinational corporations. JRG has a focus on identifying, targeting, optimizing and conquering growth opportunities. In addition, Dr. McKenna is Managing Director of Triple Ring Innovation Labs, the new business incubation program at Triple Ring Technologies, an innovative contract research and medical product development company, which partners with clients to complete complex technical projects from conceptual design through development and product launch.

Previously, Dr. McKenna was Chief Scientist and Engineer at Covidien. He is an inventor on over 100 filed patents and received five innovation awards during his time at Covidien including two time Inventor of the Year and Filed Patent of the Year. Dr. McKenna worked on many acquisitions at Covidien including Cardio Digital, Aspect Medical, Somanetics and Oridion. As a researcher he performed research in non-invasive technologies for the measurement of various physiologic parameters such as tissue hydration, non-invasive blood pressure, total hemoglobin, oximetry, tissue oxygenation, cardiac output and glucose.

Prior to Covidien, Dr. McKenna founded two technology companies while he was getting his PhD, both sold very successfully. Before that, Dr. McKenna was Chief Optical Hardware Engineer at Next Level Communications. He was the chief designer of the optical interfaces and controllers for a system that allowed telephone companies to compete with cable providers. Motorola acquired Next Level in 2002.

Dr. McKenna has BS and MS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University of Colorado at Boulder.

He is married with 3 children and enjoys running, cycling, classical music, surfing and playing with his kids in his spare time.

Gary Himes

Managing Director

Gary Himes serves as Managing Director at The Courtney Group. He advises companies in healthcare, technology, and real estate.

Mr. Himes helped build BGS Pharmacy Partners through 30 acquisitions. Earlier in his career, Mr. Himes was an investment officer with CapitalSource as that firm went through a period of rapid growth. He began his career on Wall Street at Prudential Bache Securities and subsequently worked at Colman, Furlong & Company. Mr. Himes was the founder and CEO of boutique investment bank, Flatirons Capital Advisors.

Mr. Himes has extensive experience advising acquirers.

Mr. Himes has a BA in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Studies from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Mr. Himes likes to ski and listen to jazz music. He was a professional tennis player before beginning his business career.

Areas of interest:

Real Estate - Hotels

Healthcare Services and Pharma

Technology

Matt Allen

Managing Director

Matt Allen, Managing Director, has over 20 years of experience in Investment Banking. He has completed more than 50 transactions with financial services companies nationwide including mergers, acquisitions, capital raising and divestitures. Mr. Allen is also Managing Principal of Little Creek Capital where he provides consulting services to regulated depositories and specialty finance companies.

Prior to these positions, Mr. Allen was a Managing Director for Western Financial Corporation where he was head of Investment Banking, Managing Director at Milestone Advisors LLC where he led the Bank and Thrift Group, and worked for a brief period with Houlihan Lokey following its acquisition of Milestone in December 2012. Mr. Allen was a Managing Director for Hoefer & Arnett and a Senior Vice President for Hovde Financial. Mr. Allen’s responsibilities include the origination, structuring, and negotiation of merger and acquisition transactions, valuation of financial institutions, and identification and implementation of strategic alternatives for banks, thrifts and specialty finance companies. Mr. Allen is also responsible for structuring asset and liability sales, branch acquisitions and divestitures, and offerings of all types of equity and debt securities.

Mr. Allen has a BS in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Old Dominion University, and a MBA in Finance from the Mason School at the College of William and Mary.

Mr. Allen is married with a son and a daughter. He loves fishing, hiking, and tennis and all sorts of ocean activities.

Areas of interest:

Bank & Thrift Mergers & Acquisitions

Specialty Finance

Technology of payment processing and transfer payments

Gene Vivino

Managing Director

Gene Vivino, Senior Advisor at The Courtney Group, has spent three decades planning for, building and managing businesses worldwide. He has extensive expertise in international and emerging markets, especially China, and has held leadership positions in finance, strategic planning, business development, and management.

From 1999 to 2015 Mr. Vivino worked at Becton Dickinson. In his most recent assignments in Asia, he led development of the company’s long-term strategic plan for China, creating a key growth driver for the company. He has also developed country level strategic plans for Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as planning and business development experience in Brazil and other Latin American countries.

As Becton Dickinson’s Director of Corporate Development and Strategic Investments, Mr. Vivino led the identification, evaluation, strategic fit, due diligence and integration for a range of acquisitions and strategic alliances. Mr. Vivino worked on the acquisitions of Clontech, Gentest and other life science tools companies. Mr. Vivino prepared and delivered investor presentations for Becton Dickinson at many conferences and analyst meetings. He has specialized in communicating a company’s entrepreneurial vision to the marketplace.

Mr. Vivino has an MBA in Finance, Marketing & Strategic Planning from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. Mr. Vivino is married, with a son. He has lived and worked in the U.S., Asia and Latin America, is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and has a working knowledge of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Italian.

Areas of interest:

Medtech

Food and Ingredients

Chemicals

Our Promise To You...

We promise our investment banking clients senior-level attention and the determination to see the investment banking assignments we accept through the entire process to successful completion. We promise our private equity partners, investors, lenders, advisors, and the companies in which we seek to invest transparency, responsiveness, and good faith dealing.

Our Pledge

At The Courtney Group, we pledge to provide you with the highest level of integrity and expertise; to recommend only what’s suitable for you and your situation; to give you senior-level personalized attention; and to stand by our work and our word.